36 Hours (3 page)

“The receptionist was busy?”

“You’re wasting my time.”

Why do some teachers just always have to
complain
? Saying nothing, I dropped into my seat. The Stephen King novel just lay there. I didn’t want to read it anymore. The boy’s angry yells were engraved in my mind. How his mom had disappeared. Why couldn’t she have just opened the door and slipped out? Why’d she barge her way out of the house? I shuddered at reasons. None stood unbeaten.

My thought was broken. Some kid said, “Hey! Outside!”

Hood. “What is it, Jeff?”

“An accident! An accident in the subdivision!”

Kids leapt from their seats and crowded the windows. I was slow, and couldn’t get to the two windows. And I had been born with short genes. I couldn’t see over the tops of their heads. I pieced the image together in my Anthony Barnhart

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mind. An image I didn’t want. An image made up of shocked words from the students’ mouths.

The driver looks okay, he just got out of the car.
Why did the one swerve into the other lane?

He’s getting out of his car.

What’s wrong with him? He looks so messed up.

What’re they doing?

Oh my gosh, he just tackled him! He’s beating him on the pavement!

He’s killing the other guy! He’s yelling and killing and beating him!

The trees! The trees! Look at them!

Who do you think they are?

They don’t look right.

I stood atop a desk. The caps of the students ran to the windows. I could barely make out the base of the tree line. The mist.
Skeleton Crew
. Out of the mist were foggy shapes, humans, except they seemed to be hunched over, arms dangling, legs leading them this way and that. The figures materialized out of the mist. Men and women. Regular people. Some had blood stains on their clothes. But most were just covered with that purple discoloration, the sunken eyes, venomous teeth. Absolutely awful-looking. They were heading towards the school, through the brown, curling grass of the lawn, between pounds of moss-ridden dirt. They ambled along, with no directive. Aimlessly. Some tilted their heads. Others fell, only to get back up. Drool dripped down their faces. The beauty on the outside replaced with horrible ugliness; the beauty on the inside just stripped away, revealing the dark malice and sin beneath. I jumped off the desk, barged through the door. Hood didn’t even yell at me. I could see students in the hall, talking hurriedly. Some teachers came out, trying to calm everyone down. I jogged over to the atrium and peered down; a cop stood there. In one hand was a 9mm, the other a radio. He held the radio less tense than the gun. Some kids bounced into me. I didn’t care. Doors opened and kids staggered out of classrooms.

Did you see them? See them in the field?

There’s smoke over South Arlington, something is burning
There’s a big accident on Main Street and its burning…

There are people down there, coming towards the school!

People?

They don’t look right. They look sick.

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I half-ran, half-fell down a flight of steps, landing on the ground floor. Kids were here and there, thick as flies over carrion. I thought of carrion. Dead animals. I thought that the people coming towards the school were a lot like dead animals.

There was a crash, a shatter, a scream—horrendous—and a shout. I looked over.

Kids shouted and hollered and ran. Glass covered the floor from one of the doors leading out to the concrete patio encircling the school. I could see hands reaching through the glass, groping. A hand grabbed the shirt of a football player, but he ripped free. He punched the figure, which I couldn’t see, and the hands slithered out. A stampede erupted as another door bent open, and a deranged woman gushed in. She was large and overweight, purple flesh rolling through her shirt. She stumbled into the corridor and wrenched a kid, throwing her against a locker; the girl beat the brute, and the woman smashed her head into the girl’s face, bashing it in. Blood flowed over the woman’s arms. She sunk her teeth into the girl’s broken face, the girl’s ragged screams jagged with agony.

I couldn’t move, even with all the kids sprinting past, here and there. The girl dropped to the ground; the woman ran down the hall. The other door burst open, and several male figures entered, twitching and flailing. I felt a bulge and streaking pain; my shirt tugged back; I glanced over my shoulder. Through broken glass an elder’s face glared at me, the once-happy and comical age lines now replaced with hatred and blood lust. Blood dripped from his lips. I tore away and fell against the water fountain. Collapsed to the floor. From the floor, I saw feet running past. The door at my feet splintered open. A man rushed in and tackled a kid to the ground, beating him with his fists. I was too paralyzed to help, the youth’s bitter screams resounding painfully in my ears. Then I saw the girl who had been mashed in the face getting to her feet. Blood flowed like a river, but somehow she stood, one eye caked in warm blood. She stared right at me, and surged towards my sprawled position; her manicured hands snapped and jolted; her mouth furled back, revealing yellowing teeth. Her eyes locked with mine.

Nightmares

I ripped myself to my feet and surged down the hallway. Kids were pouring down the steps leading to the second story. Some were even going up. Why, I don’t know. I doubt they escaped. The atrium was pandemonium; some kids lay Anthony Barnhart

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trampled, groping at wounds. Others screamed and cried. Several large and muscular kids pinned themselves against the bus entrance doors; against the doors, several wracking people threw their bodies, clawing at the glass. Infected. Infected. That’s what they were. Infected. Like the boy. The boy.

I spun around to see the boy coming at me. His braids covered his fiendish face. He let out a snarl, a scream, a howl, blood-chilling. He came at me fast. A kid jumped out of the way. I hunched and drilled my foot into the kid’s chest, tossing him down. He hit hard and growled—or roared?—at me. He reached for my ankles, and pulled himself to them, ready to sink in his teeth. I remembered the girl. How she awoke. How she had become something so… evil. The kid’s teeth glimmered; I stumbled away, but fell, landing on my tail bone. Pain. Didn’t care. I kicked Mat hew—it wasn’t Matthew anymore—in the face, and blood flowed from the shoe imprint. He fell back, scraping at the wound. I got to my feet and joined the crowd.

Those barring the door were thrown back as the people threw their entire weight onto the door. They fell to the ground, and the infected swarmed over them like bees in a hive. The kids screamed for help, tried to get up, but the infected did not obey, only beat them and sank their teeth into them and clawed at them and ripped at their clothes, their flesh, those mangled screams. Mutilated cries.

I stood near one of the brick pillars of the once-silent atrium. Those holding the doors got to their feet, sluggishly, and their faces went purple, eyes sunken. Infected. They headed towards the crowd. A girl ran after one of them, screaming for her brother; her brother grabbed her and threw her against the wall, then ripped off her arm. Blood gushed all over the glass trophy display, staining the titles. She screamed and cried as her brother murdered her under the effects of the disease.

The crowd tugged me along. Down D Hallway. Into the commons. The infected were everywhere, pouring through windows and doors. I fell between two tables; an infected came at me; I kicked a table over, hurling it at him; the infected fell. I snatched my chair, on my feet. Another came at me, out of the shadows. It was a kid. A teen in my health class. I bashed her with the chair, then stomped down on her throat. She gurgled. Tears. Wanted to cry. Didn’t. The band hallway appeared to be miles away. I ran for it. Somehow I reached it, went through swinging doors. I turned to see three infected humans coming at Anthony Barnhart

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me. An older man and two teens from the school. One bled profusely from the leg. I kicked the doors outward, knocking them down, and raced down the hallway.

A teacher appeared, hollered, “What’s going on out there!”

“Run!” I hollered, tried to run past.

He grabbed me. The weight-lifting coach.

Coach snarled, “Where do you think-“

The doors flipped open and the infected came through, growling. The coach’s brow creased. “What in the-“

A connecting hallway spilled the female gym teacher. She hollered and ran at us. I pulled free and bolted for glass doors leading to a grassy lawn, which bordered the parking lot. It looked clear. I shook the doors. Locked. The weightlifting teacher swung at the gym teacher and knocked her to the ground. The other three intercepted, and he swung left and right; he fell, blood flowing from his arm. The infected jumped all over him. Final y he threw them off. But when he stood, he wasn’t the gym teacher.

He stared at me.

No… No… I rattled the doors… No.

He came toward, lumbering. I was pinned. The doors jolted back and forth. I let out a scream, hunched back, and kicked the glass as hard as possible. It webbed. I kicked again, and it splintered. I ducked and punched my hands into the glass. Shards cut my hand.

Coach reached for me.

I ducked through; his hands brushed my feet, and I curled fetal outside under the warm sun.

Coach shook the doors, unable to fit through. He roared. The other infected came to the door. One could fit through. I didn’t wait to see how long it would take.

I ran across the grassy knoll. Smoke rose above the skyscrapers plastered against the jagged mountains, curling around the towering buildings. I could see the Junior High. Little kids ran, their screams rushing my ears. High School kids gushed from several entrances, running for their cars. Some already reached the parking lot, gunning for home in terror. Infected beings ran between the cars, from the trees, and came from the surrounding neighborhoods. Horns honked everywhere. Madness. In the distance I could hear the smashing of metal, screams and cries. An explosion shook the ground.

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The infected crawled through the hole and ran after me. I jumped five feet over the grass and landed hard on the street. A car revved right for me. I ran across the street. The infected jumped, landing hard, sprawling. He looked up as the car smashed into him, rolling over his body. Cared not to see the carnage. I ran between the aisles, searching for my Jeep. Fear. My keys. They were there. I found the Jeep Cherokee, the green paint warm under the spring sun. My door was locked.

Some of the infected rummaging the parking lot saw me and started coming towards me.

I fiddled with the keys. Dropped them. Tried again. Dropped them. They were near. So near. Too near. They hollered. Blood-curdling hollers.

“God help me…” The key twisted. I jumped in, slammed the door, locked it. An infected hurled himself against the car door window, spreading drool and blood over the glass. I started the engine, telling myself to calm down, threw it into reverse, and stamped the gas. I jerked the wheel and reversed, swinging in an arch, parallel to the car lane.

And I saw Hannah standing by her Sunfire. Her keys were missing. Tears crawled down her face. An infected rushed at her. Another from the other side. I didn’t see Peyton. I hit the gas, raced forward, slammed the brakes. I reached under the seat, grabbed an iron bar used for installing tires, unlocked the car, jumped out. I shouted at her. She turned, pointed. I ducked just as an infected swung out at me. I jabbed the pointed end of the bar upwards, into the infected beast’s stomach. It fell back, groping at the wound, falling against a truck. Blood spread between his fingers.

“Get in!” I shouted.

Hannah raced forward and dove through the front seat. An infected came at the door. It was my Government teacher; she had given me the Gold Coin award because I was, in her words, a “hard-working, determined student with a good attitude, and very admirable.” Now she ran towards me, bleeding from the eye, wailing like a burnt banshee. Another came from behind, hunched over and corroding from morality.

I hopped in, slammed it shut, hit the gas. Left both behind me. “What’s going on!” she cried.

“I’ve no idea.”

I sped down the lane, out onto the exit road, and hit the gas hard as possible. An infected darted in front of us; I hit it, shocked I had hit a person. The body Anthony Barnhart

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thumped on the windshield, pulled a cartwheel and landed behind us, bones broken and smeared. I pulled onto the main road. The stoplights were dim. I sped past the Junior High, towards Olde Clearcreek. For home. Left the High School behind.

Alive.

Hannah gaped at me. “My brother…”

8:00 a.m.

Main Street

25 Rosebud Avenue

Revelation

Main Street was a disaster. Accidents cluttered the roadway; cars burned; vehicles had slid into ditches. Smoke gushed from the burning skeletons of Miatas and Fords and Pontiacs. Vehicles went my direction, shakily swerving ahead of and behind me. Some went the other direction, high-tailing it out of downtown South Arlington. Infected walked the road and roadsides, legs cutting through a shallow morning mist that lapped at the street sides. Hannah hunched over, sobbing, repeating over and over, “My brother, my brother, my brother…”

Peyton. I wasn’t going back. Sorry buddy. Not a chance. I jerked the wheel and swerved around the collision of a truck and van; a man was crawling out of the truck back window. I stole a look into the glass window and saw an infected rushing the truck. What had happened to these people? I really didn’t know. And still don’t. The scientists have never understood; it just sort of ran its course, and for some godforsaken reason, I was spared. Me and a few others. I felt bad for Hannah. But every time she said, “My brother…” I thought of Ashlie.

I cared more about Ashlie than I did anyone else.